•Shettima: Region will re-elect president
•Makinde will defeat Tinubu in his 12 battleground states, others, says campaign council
Deji Elumoye, Chuks Okocha and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, has predicted that the North will give President Bola Tinubu more than 70 per cent of its votes in the 2027 presidential election.
Vice President Kashim Shettima has also said the North will re-elect Tinubu, stressing that the region had spoken with a resounding voice and unmistakable conviction for Tinubu’s re-election.
But the Makinde-Daura Presidential Campaign Organisation (MDPCO) declared that its presidential candidate on the platform of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, will defeat Tinubu in the 12 battleground states identified by the president, as well as in other states across the federation.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja when Shettima unveiled the Arewa for Asiwaju Campaign Head Office and formally inaugurated the campaign structure of the northern think tank, Yilwatda urged people in the North to support Tinubu’s re-election bid, citing infrastructure projects, appointments and other initiatives of the President’s administration.
The APC chairman listed road projects across northern states, the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline, irrigation dams, railway projects, healthcare initiatives and the Nigerian Education Loan Fund among the interventions he said should encourage the North to support Tinubu for a second term.
“I can’t mention all of them, but President Bola Tinubu has done wonderfully. He has covered all the geopolitical zones in the North in terms of road projects,” he added.
He moved a motion for the northern region to support the re-election of the Tinubu/Shettima ticket, outlining reasons why the region should mobilize massively for the president.
He noted that the region’s strong backing stems from the Vice President’s inclusive leadership and progressive mindset over the past three years.
Shettima: Region Will Re-elect President in 2027
Also speaking, Shettima declared that the North will re-elect Tinubu, adding however, that the growing northern support for president’s re-election was not a blank check.
According to him, Tinubu’s administration will earn it through facts, radical transparency and measurable results.
He maintained that expanding loyalty in the region would demand greater accountability and an honest dialogue with citizens about ongoing reforms undertaken by the administration.
Shettima said the North had spoken with a resounding voice and unmistakable conviction in its support for the President.
According to him, renewed political confidence should never be taken for granted, adding that the government and its supporters must continue to engage Nigerians with facts and show how the ongoing reforms are improving security, livelihoods, and economic opportunity.
“By now, I believe the North has spoken. We have spoken with a resounding voice and unmistakable conviction. From Adamawa to Zamfara, from Borno to Niger, we have spoken. Such confidence places an obligation upon us that no officeholder should ever underestimate,” he stated.
The Vice President noted that President Tinubu’s bid for a renewed mandate must rest on the administration’s record and a clear account of how another term would advance Nigerians’ interests.
He restated that the North had nothing to fear in President Tinubu’s second term as Nigeria’s leader.
Shettima acknowledged that Nigerians had endured difficult economic adjustments, warning campaigners against dismissing genuine concerns or relying on political slogans to defend government policies.
“Our citizens have endured difficult adjustments. We cannot pretend otherwise. What we owe them is an honest account of the decisions taken, the gains achieved and the difficulties that persist. We lose our hearing when applause becomes our only source of information,” he added.
The Vice President said the concerns of traders facing higher costs, graduates searching for work and families struggling with daily expenses must remain central to government decision-making.
“A failed policy enters somebody’s home as a missed meal, an unpaid school fee or an opportunity lost,” he said.
He also defended criticism as essential to democratic governance, saying the administration must remain open to useful ideas irrespective of political affiliation, ethnicity, religion or region.
“There is no democracy without critics. Progress demands that our assumptions endure the examination of those who disagree with us,” Shettima said.
The Vice President said the administration’s priorities remain security, economic opportunity, poverty reduction, education and stronger public institutions.
“The farmer should be able to cultivate in safety. A child’s education should prepare that child for a productive life. Public institutions should give citizens confidence that effort can yield opportunity,” he said.
Earlier, Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin said the inauguration of the A4A structure for the 2027 presidential elections came at a time when the region needed a strong, trusted platform to mobilise support for Tinubu.
Similarly, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume, said history was beckoning the North to act with wisdom and evidence, not sentiment, in its decision to support the Tinubu administration in the 2027 elections.
On his part, Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, speaking on behalf of all the governors of the North, said the northern region’s support for the President in the forthcoming elections would be based on its conviction to uphold fairness, equity, unity and the progress of the country.
In his welcome address, the Director General of A4A and former Jigawa State governor, Abubakar Mohammed Badaru, said the group’s emergence was not accidental, but born of the conviction that President Tinubu and his deputy have performed well and deserve re-election.
Makinde Will Defeat Tinubu in His 12 Battleground States, Others, Says Campaign Council
Meanwhile, the Makinde-Daura Presidential Campaign Organisation (MDPCO) has declared that its presidential candidate on the platform of the APM, Governor Makinde will defeat Tinubu in the 12 battleground states identified by the president, as well as in other states across the federation.
Makinde also declared that Nigeria’s biggest problem is grinding poverty, not religion, urging Christians to stop shunning politics and take an active role in transforming the country.
The MDPCO, in a statement by its Director of Strategic Communications, Hon. Richard Nnanna Ihediwa, asserted that Makinde would decisively defeat Tinubu and his APC Presidential Campaign Council in Rivers State and the FCT, insisting that no amount of political manoeuvring, intimidation or abuse of incumbency by the President’s henchmen can reverse the growing tide of opposition to his re-election.
The organisation said the arrogance and political overreach of Tinubu’s inner circle had deepened public resentment and further weakened his electoral prospects.
It added that President Tinubu’s decision to personally visit and campaign in only 12 states — Oyo, Kaduna, Rivers, Plateau, Borno, Enugu, Bauchi, Sokoto, Delta, Kano, Adamawa and Lagos — further confirmed his apprehension over the mileage and foothold already achieved by Makinde with his RESET NIGERIA Agenda message in the aforementioned and other states of the federation.
“Mr President should know that his visit to these states, if he eventually does, will not in any way change the direction or the determination of the people to vote him out, given his unpardonable failures in office which have brought unprecedented hardship across the country,” the organisation said.
“President Tinubu has no meaningful achievement he can boast of in these and other states of the federation where Nigerians now refer to his government as ‘T-Pain’ following the suffering they have been subjected to by the policies of the Tinubu administration in the last three and a half years.”
The MDPCO challenged President Tinubu not to have a change of mind but to visit the states to face the people.
“We challenge President Tinubu to travel around the country by road and witness the decrepit state of federal highways, the squalor in which Nigerians live and the level of infrastructural decay across the country, while his government squanders trillions of Naira on white elephant projects and wasteful programmes.
“If President Tinubu believes he is popular as he claims, he should not stop at the rally ground or at the airport when he gets to any of the states. He should go beyond waving to a gathering of APC rented crowd and be bold enough to directly engage the people in the communities and towns to seek their votes, as the APM candidate, Makinde, has been doing since he started his campaign,” it said.
“Nigerians are gravitating towards the core campaign pillars and proposals in Makinde’s RESET NIGERIA Agenda, which include the establishment of an all-inclusive, four-year transitional government of national unity with four priority pillars of education, economy, security and socio-political policies.
“Unlike President Tinubu’s visionless, thoughtless and rudderless rule characterised by crass arbitrariness, Makinde’s RESET NIGERIA Agenda offers data-driven strategies that revolve around tackling poverty through massive production; a security plan that prioritises intelligence gathering, social reorientation and decisive kinetic and non-kinetic actions; an education plan that focuses on expanding access to quality functional education; and institutional reform that emphasises inclusive governance and sincere public leadership.”
The campaign urged Tinubu “not to waste the nation’s resources on his ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ Campaign Council of failed politicians who, like the president himself, cannot attract votes from Nigerians.”
In another development, Makinde has declared that Nigeria’s biggest problem was grinding poverty, not religion, urging Christians to stop shunning politics and take an active role in transforming the country.
He said Christians could not afford to stand aloof from politics because it was dirty or because they should not serve under leaders who did not share their faith, stressing that national transformation required their active participation.
Makinde spoke yesterday in Abuja after receiving a Christian Icon Award at the Christian Association of Nigeria’s (CAN) 50th anniversary celebration.
The governor said Christians should draw lessons from biblical figures who accepted difficult assignments in pursuit of a greater purpose.
Makinde cited David, who, despite having been anointed king, served in the palace of Saul, from whom God had departed.